Rose Anne Kenny, MD, FRCPI, FRCP

Professor of Medical GerontologyTrinity College Dublin

As the world’s population of elders increases, understanding the link between heart and brain health is becoming more important. Rose Anne Kenny’s work brings GBHI decades of knowledge about cardiovascular risk factors and their relationship to cognitive decline.

Understanding the relationship between co-dependence of the cardiovascular system and brain health will enable new life course solutions for dementia prevention coupled with tailored interventions for ageing.

Kenny holds the chair of medical gerontology at Trinity College Dublin and is principal investigator of The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), where she leads a team of multidisciplinary researchers focusing on medicine, neuro-cardiovascular health, psychology, nursing, medicine, physiotherapy, economics, bioengineering, social sciences, and health economics as aspects of the aging process. Kenny’s large cohort investigations into cardiovascular and brain dysfunction inform early diagnostics and intervention strategies for falls, syncope, depression and dementia. Her work involves a collaborative approach, combining basic science, clinical applications, and health care policies to develop tailored therapeutic strategies for cognitive impairment and mobility disorders. She is co-founder and director of Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing (MISA), the largest purpose-built clinical research facility for aging in the Irish and British Isles.

In 1992, Kenny established the first dedicated syncope service in the United Kingdom, which has since been replicated worldwide. She was previously professor of cardiovascular research at Newcastle University and now directs a busy national clinical and research syncope facility at MISA in Dublin, seeing more than 5,000 patients annually. Kenny’s work has helped create new methods for assessment of falls and syncope risk, which have been adopted internationally. In 2014, Kenny was admitted to the Royal Irish Academy.

Bio: Rose Anne Kenny holds the chair of medical gerontology at Trinity College Dublin and St. James’s Hospital, and is director of Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing. Before her present appointment, Kenny held the chair of cardiovascular research at the University of Newcastle, where she was head of academic and clinical departments of medical gerontology for 12 years. She has published extensively on cardiovascular risk factors for falls and cognitive decline in aging.